British University to Host Hamas Supporter

Hamas supporter to speak at event honoring Holocaust revisionist at King's College London.

By Tova Dvorin and Ari Soffer

First Publish: 5/7/2014, 8:22 PM

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A watchdog group has raised alarm over anti-Semitism in the UK Wednesday, noting that Hamas and Holocaust denial are becoming endemic at British universities - and all in the name of "human rights."

Counter-extremism group Stand for Peace reports that The Middle East Monitor Online (MEMO), an English-language pro-Hamas publication, is sponsoring an event at King's College London with notorious Hamas supporter Azzam Tamimi as a guest speaker.

To add to the controversy, the “inaugural Abdelwahab Elmessiri Memorial Lecture” honors an Egyptian Holocaust revisionist and a prolific writer of anti-Semitic works.

In 1999 Elmessiri published an eight-volume anti-Semitic “encyclopedia” of Judaism, which won first prize at the Cairo Book Fair that year. He also adamantly denied the Holocaust, claiming that it was a device Zionists exploit for their justification of establishing the State of Israel and that far fewer than 6 million Jews died.

"The Nazis desperately needed workers, why would the war machine waste its time destroying millions instead of using them as slave laborers?” Elmessiri asked.

A BBC Arabic interview published in 2007 also quotes him as claiming that the State of Israel has "nothing to do with Judaism."

"The functional nature of Israel means that it was created by the colonialism for a specific purpose," Elmessri said. "It is thus a colonial project that has nothing to do with Judaism."

Tamimi, for his part, is the Hamas "special envoy" to the UK - despite being merely "a supporter but not a member" of the group. Tamimi also supports Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad and told BBC in 2004 that he would volunteer for a suicide bombing "if he had the opportunity."

MEMO states on its website that it seeks to bring more "awareness" about Palestinian Arab causes to the West, allegedly from "insiders." As Stand for Peace also notes, MEMO's editor Daud Abdullah was also the former deputy-secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain - which was distanced from the British government after he signed the Istanbul Declaration, which calls for attacks on Jews and British troops.

MEMO’s senior editor is Ibrahim Hewitt, a trustee of the Hamas-linked charity Interpal, which is banned as a terrorist organization in the United States. Hewitt has also denied the Holocaust and calls for the execution of deviants to strict Islamic Sharia law.

Sam Westrop, Director of Stand For Peace, lamented the development in a statement to Arutz Sheva on Wednesday - noting the typically meek response to a high-profile visit by a leading Islamic hate-preacher in one of London's most prestigious universities.

"Only at a British university could you find a notorious Hamas supporter speaking in support of a rabid Holocaust revisionist with the support of academics who claim to speak for human rights," Westrop stated.

"I continue to wait for student anger, sit-ins, mass demonstrations and strikes until this hatred is expunged," he said.